SEMANTICS: the semantic restrictions that a word imposes on the
environment in which it occurs.
EXAMPLE: a verb like eat requires that its subject refers to an
animate entity and its object to something concrete. A violation of the selectional
restrictions of a word results in anomaly: in
the mountain eats sincerity both restrictions are violated, rendering the
sentence anomalous. The question whether selectional restrictions should be treated
in syntax or semantics, or even outside grammar, as a matter of knowledge of the
world, has been a point of debate.